Mr. Jones and Me

"You're not gonna like this," said the doc as he walked back into the room holding the x-rays of my foot, "You broke that bone." "I was kind of guessing it might be a stress fracture," I said. "No," he responded, "it's worse."

The official diagnosis is a Jones Fracture, which you can read a little about here. Looks like I'm facing a minimum of 6 weeks off and maybe as many as 16. I go for a CT Scan on Monday to determine if there's any displacement. If there is, I'll likely need surgery and a screw and plate inserted. I do know that I did a real number on it. The fracture was plain as day on the x-rays and I pretty much broke it all the way across. It basically looked like someone had taken an ink pen and drawn a line across my fifth metatarsal. I actually had a second, smaller fracture farther forward as well. Not good. I'm in a boot and on crutches for walking and will be non-weight bearing for anywhere from 2-6 weeks depending on how the healing comes along.

The Jones fracture is a tough one because it's in an area that gets very little blood flow, and it's also in a type of bone that tends to be slower to heal than other types. Based on that and the fact that I fractured it the way I did, I'm guessing I could be looking at the longer end of the recovery period. I'm going to give it everything I've got though. I've already started Calcium, Magnesium, and Vitamins C and D supplementation and will be doing lots of contrast baths (cold/hot) to get as much blood to the area as possible. I'm going to wear compression socks when I'm not icing/heating as well, also to assist with keeping the inflammation down and the blood flow as high as possible. Furthermore, I'm gonna shape up my diet to get it as healthy as I can and work on getting plenty of sleep as well. I know none of that is gonna make a huge difference, but I refuse not to put as much effort into recovery as I would into working out if I was healthy. In other words, I will not go down without a fight.

That said, I'm a little depressed and a whole lot frustrated, but at least I know what I'm dealing with now and can go to work on it, so my mood actually isn't all that bad. I will overcome this just like I have all my other injuries and will be back at it before you know it. In the meantime, I've got some serious recovering and rehab to do and also some major evaluation to do of all my training methods, not just the workouts, but everything that has to do with being an athlete. I look at this as a major wake-up call and another, maybe even a final, chance to get things right before it's too late. Wish me luck on all of it!